Armstrong Talks Tarasenko’s Ceiling and Bringing in Right Players to Help Him Reach It

By Luke Schnake April 11, 2018 3:22 pm

If you haven’t heard, Vladimir Tarasenko went under the knife Wednesday to repair his left shoulder.

The Blues winger suffered the injury Saturday in Colorado, colliding with the Avalanche’s Nathan MacKinnon after just 2:20 of ice time. The Blues will reevaluate Vladdy in September after the predicted 4-6 months of recovery time.

In the meantime, Blues general manager Doug Armstrong will try and set his prized winger up with some help on the scoring end, either via trade or free agency. In an exclusive 101ESPN interview, Army talked with Bernie Miklasz and Michelle Smallmon about reinforcing the offense around Vladdy, as well as helping the 26 year old Russian.

“He holds himself accountable and we do too for winning the Hart Trophy, winning the scoring race. He has that type of talent,” Arsmtrong said. “You don’t hold players accountable or you don’t put expectations you don’t think they can reach. I think he can be a first or second team all-star every year. He can win major awards.”

“He didn’t have a poor year by any stretch, but there’s a level that we want to help him push to and get to and I think he can do that. We have to support him and he has to support himself in the sense of letting his frustrations go quicker, understanding everyone’s here to help him and no one is against him,” the GM added.

“That really what we want to do is put players with him that can make him succeed and that’s one of the things we will discuss over the summer.”

Armstrong touched on several topics in his recent 101ESPN chat, including Jake Allen’s future, reestablishing a winning culture, and finding a top-flight center. Listen to it in it’s entirety below and stay tuned for plenty of Blues coverage and analysis throughout the offseason.